


Don't Ask Me For Relationship Advice

by PinkImpala



Series: High School Sweethearts [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Character Death, Complete, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The 80s AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 02:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkImpala/pseuds/PinkImpala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is your cliched high school loser just trying to get by. During his sophomore year of high school, a new family moves to town whose oldest son has a knack for getting himself in trouble. When Castiel's father suggests that the two boys hang out to keep bad boy Dean Winchester from getting into more trouble, the possibility for something more than friendship arises. However, when Dean freaks out over his feelings for Castiel, their relationship gets put back at square one after Dean makes a mistake that can't be fixed.</p>
<p>Narrated by a now 42 year old Castiel looking back down memory lane at his first time falling in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Family Dynamics

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this over a year ago and I'm finally starting to post it! Please let me know what you think! Pacing, character development, and course of action were a pain to make decisions over. Enjoy!

It began in the summer of ’83. I was 14 and fresh out of my first year of high school. I didn’t have anything to my name other than the 5 dollar bill my dad gave me every other week for always doing what I was told. I was saving up for something I can’t seem to remember right now, but it made all the difference then. I always kept my most recent payment in my left front pocket because it seemed like the right thing to do. You know, if I ever needed to buy a strawberry milkshake and fries for Meg… well whatever her last name was. She had this no nonsense attitude that I desperately wanted to relate to and she was the only girl who took pride in saying no to the football team. She was in my Home Ec class. No one pays attention in Home Ec, but I should have received an award for being the best at it. No matter how you looked at it, all I wanted was to spend at least two weeks allowance on her just once and I learned quickly that staring like she was her own species wasn’t going to help me achieve that goal.

So there I was at the end of my first year of high school stuffing yet another five dollar bill between my mattresses to hide from my older brothers. Especially Gabriel, he was always running out of money and thought I was an atm.

I should probably explain my family and their interesting dynamics before going any further. My dad was a particularly important man at the company he worked for. He was always too busy with clients or typing up long reports so most of the weight fell on my shoulders to make sure everything got done in the house. It fell on my shoulders because I was the youngest brother, probably a bit of a push over, and I guess logic states that that means older siblings can make me do whatever. Gabriel was the oldest, he was notoriously slick and used fancy words to woo women. Raphael is next, he was top of his class and went around telling everyone he planned on being a doctor or something like that. Then there was me with my fists shoved into my pockets clutching money while sniffling due to allergies in a hand-me-down sweater vest two sizes too big and a blue tie that I never learned how to properly tie until my 20s. And then there was my younger sister Anna. I’m not blaming her for anything that may or may not have happened during high school, entirely. But I owe her a great deal more than I think I’ve ever attempted to make up for. I’d like to conclude this lovely family portrait by saying I don’t hate my family and my family doesn’t hate me, I think.

That summer probably means more than my mind is allowing me to remember. Gabriel was in a relationship with this girl named Samantha, and Raphael spent most of his time pretending to be interested in biology books he borrowed from the local university’s library. As for me, I continued to make sure Meg knew that I thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, at least in my own special way of really making sure she was freaked out by my constant staring. I thought I was a lot dumber than I really was when it came to dating. Being self-taught in that department was a lot different when you were a brace face 14 year old in the 80s. Nowadays all you have to do is log onto the internet, I think the popular phrase to use in this situation would be “Google it.” Type in ‘how to win a girl over’ and more than a sufficient number of references, with slightly less than stupid responses will pop up. Nope, back then I generally resorted to movies like Annie Hall that taught me that even someone as weird as me could find love, Grease is where I got the idea about buying her a milkshake and a year later Sixteen Candles gave me a falsified version of the world of girls I spent such a long time trying to figure out.

It was the middle of July and I was counting my money. 20 dollars. Not bad for a guy like me. Then again I had no reason to spend my money. Baseball cards were still cool, but it was an expensive venture for someone who wanted to get serious about collecting and I wasn’t serious. I couldn’t drive so no need to worry about gas and my dad was nice enough to buy the used bike I wanted for me. 20 dollars was nice. Until I did the math. 20 dollars wasn’t including the five that I kept in my pocket. It was July 16th which meant my dad had paid me once that month, March was when my dad started his deal because it was my birthday and I asked for an allowance as opposed to a lump sum. Something about it teaching me to save money and to ration it on purchases responsibly sold him on the idea. Anyways I should have had 25 not including the money I kept with me. This I remember clearly because Gabriel got yelled at, which didn’t happen often. A week prior he had been complaining about how girlfriends were too expensive and the next day he came home late having gone to the local drive-in reeking of buttered popcorn, cigarettes and lipstick. I rode my bike to the drive-in to do some math with the prices. He spent at least 4 dollars, I was missing 5 and I could’ve sworn I heard change in his pockets. My dad kept track of my expenses to make sure I was spending it responsibly like I promised and therefore all that was left to do was get Gabriel to confess. Ten minutes and three threats made by our father later, he fessed up. Thanks to his wonderful sly nature he made a compromise to not enter my room, give up his car for a week and he could still see his girlfriend every Tuesday, Thursday and most importantly, Saturday nights. So much for the social justice system. I counted my money every time I got paid after that.

The end of August was in sight which meant back to doing science projects by myself and holding my tongue when wanting to correct my classmates’ terrible grammar. I still hadn’t gotten my date with Meg yet so I set a goal to ask her out before school started so I’d have something cool to tell my friends. Raphael found out but didn’t care much for my pathetic escapades, but knew enough about being an ass of an older brother to tell Gabriel. He was still in trouble with our dad who took money a little too seriously, so he was smart enough not to make a big deal of it on the surface, but that didn’t stop him from making it the hardest, most embarrassing task I ever took on.

I wasn’t going to think about it too much because I still didn’t even know how to ask her out let alone where or what time. I thought about casually running into her so I spent a lot of time in town trying to figure out where I could meet up with her. I only ever saw her at the obvious locations in town like the strip mall where all the popular girls bought their clothes and the place across the street where you could get your hair colored for the cheapest price around. I had a feeling she paid for that herself based on the fact her parents were never with her and cheap meant a 15 year old could pay to have her hair dyed one shade different. Her friends thought she was cool and her parents couldn’t figure out what she had done differently. My allowance would have been taken away.

It was a week before school started and I still didn’t have my date with Meg and Gabriel started to think the whole situation was increasingly funny. I guess my self-pity had kicked in and it was obvious I wasn’t getting anywhere. Two days later I found out why Gabriel was nowhere in sight the day before. I came home from riding my bike around town, trying to find Meg, to see her sitting on the front porch, laughing, next to Gabriel. For a minute my 14 year old self asked if this was what heart break felt like. Turns out it was just the feeling of stupidity. I walked up to the front steps, leaning my bike on the railing, when Gabriel looked up.

“Hey, Castiel.” He said.

I looked at my shoes with the realization that I needed new ones.

“Meg, this is Castiel. Castiel, for starters your shoes are fine and second, this is Meg. I think you know each other.”

I can’t remember if I ever made eye contact throughout the whole conversation even once, but I could feel the way their eyes were searching for mine. I could only imagine what embarrassing stories Gabriel thought were appropriate to share. He yelled at me to get a move on because I needed to be prepped for my big date that night. I had never been so confused in my entire life, but I couldn’t help but be excited about the worst part of dating being over. The actual asking out part, that is. My brothers tried to teach me how to tie my tie and thought they did until they looked at me to find out it was still backwards. I kept it that way because I thought it showed off the real me and when I went back down the stairs with clothes that actually fit, semi-brushed hair and a backwards tie, she giggled. I still couldn’t figure out what my brothers had in store for me so I went with it.

The embarrassment started when I found out that Gabriel would be the one driving us to the location of our date. I probably would have preferred our father, but he was still in town doing business. Ten painstakingly quiet and awkward minutes later we arrived at the drive-in. Back then the drive-in was reserved for 16 year old boys who had just gotten their licenses and newfound girlfriends who wooed over their cars. No one ever actually watched the movies which was most likely why the prices went up. The owners probably thought they could make extra money by charging them for parking since that’s all they were really doing, and from what I saw as a kid, it worked.

That was one of the other reasons I resorted to movies for advice instead of my older brother who always seemed to get the girls. He said that the idea of a movie made girls more comfortable because they thought that by acting like they were legitimately into the movie, they could be spared from another Saturday night of chapped lips and choking on bad breath. Of course that’s not exactly how Gabriel put it and according to him it never worked. Except maybe the one time he came home angry about his date not going right.

Don’t ask what movie was playing because I can’t remember that either. Meg seemed to be into whatever it was, but that could’ve been her trying not to make a big deal out of the fact my brother was still sitting in the driver’s seat of the car. I kicked the back of his seat and he smirked like the older brother he was, made some obnoxious comment about how he was going to get popcorn and then catch up with a few of his friends parked two rows in front of us. I think Meg took that as me trying to get closer to her but not quite knowing how. If you haven’t noticed, I still hadn’t spoken a single word to her. I swallowed the fear building in my throat and wiped my palms on my jeans. It scared me to think she might be expecting a kiss, or at least waiting for me to man up and hold her hand. We sat in silence for 20 minutes.

“Hi.” She said.

I was reminded of how confused I was earlier in the evening when I learned I had a date.

“Did my brother pay you?” I said, “Ya know, to be here, with me?”

She didn’t look pleased with my response so I quickly said sorry and that I meant to say ‘hi’.

“That’s a bit far off from ‘hi’”. She continued.

I smiled meekly. I think she pitied me more than I pitied myself. Movies don’t teach you how to say hi, they just let you know you have to do it at some point. I could tell she was losing interest fast, not that I thought she was genuinely interested in the first place. The date couldn’t be any worse if it tried. I realized that I didn’t need my brother to embarrass me; I could do it just fine on my own.

“Are you going to kiss me or not?”

That I remember because if she hadn’t asked, it probably would’ve never happened. I thought I was going to faint, but the look she gave me said that I looked like I was ready to vomit. I took a deep breath and didn’t let it out until it was over. It felt exactly like I expected it to. Her lips were soft and warm and I could’ve sworn I felt her eyelashes brush up against my cheek. My embarrassment came back when she pulled away and I was still sitting there leaning forward with my eyes closed and lips perched in what was probably considered a terrible kissing pose. I opened my eyes to find her with a grossed out face jumping out of the side of my dad’s old convertible.

I could hear my brother laughing in the background along with a couple of his friends. One I recognized as this guy named Uriel, captain of the football team and supposedly set to go to Kansas State with a full ride scholarship. Even the captain of the football team knew what a loser I was. And that was when I realized I was never going to live down being left at the drive-in for terrible make-out skills and the inability to speak around girls. I did bad all by myself.

On our way home Gabriel only reinforced my ever growing fear of never being like him and getting a girlfriend.

“See you can’t even be mad at me because I didn’t do nothin,” He laughed.

“I get it!” I yelled at him.

Every girl I ever dated from then on got the story of how I chased away a girl by simply doing nothing.

School started and I wasn’t so sure I had a cool story to tell my friends anymore. Turns out they already knew. Because all I wanted was for them to drop the subject, I never found out if it was Meg, my brother or someone else who spilled the beans on my pathetic attempt at dating. Even if it had been Gabriel I didn’t have any evidence against him so I couldn’t do anything. He got what he’d always wanted, another reason to laugh at me. Like I said before, I don’t hate my family, these things happen between 14 and 17 year old siblings.


	2. I'm Not a Good Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel meets Dean Winchester.

Sophomore year came with even less excitement than the last. I went on a date with this girl in my biology class and I finally knew how it felt to spend my allowance on a girl, even if it wasn’t Meg. And even though I wasn’t a cool kid and neither were my friends they all seemed to have found a girlfriend by the end of the year. I was finally receiving useful relationship advice that didn’t come from a corny romantic comedy that I forced my sister to rent so I wouldn’t be seen with it. Anna was finally in high school, too. She was popular among our brothers’ friends so I guess it was just me who had no luck at anything in high school.

A new kid started school that year, too. Everyone in town knew each other, or at least knew of each other so that’s how I found out. I’d seen him around town during the summer and in the halls, but didn’t really know anything about him until the end of the year party my brother always had. Gabriel was graduating so it was an even bigger deal than usual. People who never went to his first three showed up and there was no way I could get out of going since my father thought it’d be a good idea for me to attend. Considering it took place in the backyard, that just meant that I wasn’t allowed to sit in my room with the door closed.

The party was the Friday before graduation. I sat in my room counting my money over and over again until my dad knocked on my door with a look that told me exactly what he was thinking. It was time for me to go down the stairs and attempt to socialize with people my age. I didn’t expect there to be as many people as there was and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Turns out someone spiked the punch and I knew better than to go ratting out people at the party. Two of my friends showed up because they had nothing better to do so we went out front and stood on the edge of the lawn near the road. At least that way people would think that we were greeters as opposed to unsocial sophomores who didn’t like the idea of handling liquor.

It was barely 9:30 and the sun hadn’t even disappeared completely when a shiny black car pulled up. There really wasn’t any place to park by that point so as he drove by I could’ve sworn he stared right at me with this look of curiosity. I took a big gulp of my drink because I honestly thought he was going to beat me up. I didn’t know anything about him except for the fact he wasn’t to be messed around with. Five minutes later he was walking up the driveway and my friends and I just stood there and couldn’t take our eyes off him until he noticed. I asked my friends if they knew anything about him. All I got was that he was your classic bad boy womanizer and moved to town after his dad got relocated from South Dakota. I knew he had a younger brother because he was in Anna’s grade and apparently he was her “type”.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Dean Winchester.”

That name stuck with me the entire night.

I woke up the next morning with a headache and a name consuming my brain. I couldn’t come up with a reason as to why I was still thinking about Dean so I gave up and took a shower. 15 minutes later the best I could come up with was the fact that someone cool actually took the time out of their day to look at me. It all sounds stupid now, but back then I was just a kid with nothing to brag about and being able to say Dean Winchester looked at me made me feel like I was somebody. After I went downstairs I realized how stupid it really was when Gabriel asked why I looked dumber than Anna when she got asked out for the first time. I remember quickly changing my facial expression and saying ‘nothing’ so that I wouldn’t have to explain why the thought of Dean looking at me made me feel like a 14 year old girl.

There was a week left of school before it was officially summer time so I spent my weekend finishing up leftover studying for exams that really weren’t that hard. Everyone liked to joke about how I probably could’ve gotten an A even without studying, or even trying. The tests really weren’t that hard because teachers knew that most the students didn’t study but they still had to pass in order for the school to think the teachers were successful. So I probably could’ve gotten an A without studying. But it kept my mind off things like all the fun I probably wasn’t going to have over the summer and again the piercing glare that came from Dean Winchester.

The Wednesday before school was over for another summer of misguided adventures, the fire alarm was pulled. We all knew it wasn’t a drill and it wasn’t the science lab as usual because all experiments were over for the year. Someone pranked the school. It wasn’t the first time it had happened and probably wasn’t the last, but that time around I had a pretty good idea who did it.

A week later my theory was proven correct. My dad asked if I had plans for the first couple of weeks of summer and I stupidly told the truth, which was ‘no’. He said that a coworker of his had a son that needed a good influence. They were new in town and his son wasn’t taking it well. I began to sweat because I had a pretty good idea who my dad was talking about and I couldn’t tell if I was happy, scared, excited, nauseous or a mix of all four. Apparently my dad offered to have him bring his son over to hang out with me. I wanted to tell my dad that there was a difference between having zero social life and being a good influence, but he would’ve said that was nonsense. My dad was actually proud of my boring life style.

With that settled, two days later there was a knock at the door. I swallowed my stomach back to where it should be and braced myself for the start of the worst two weeks of my life. I wasn’t going to be the first one to say anything which worked out nicely when he barged in the front door cursing and yelling about how he wasn’t the one who pulled the fire alarm. His father trailed behind him apologizing on behalf of his son. My dad reassured him it was fine and made up some bullshit about how he understood, having three boys himself. Because I was embarrassed by everything back then, it started with my dad suggesting we hang out in my room. No 15 year old hung out with friends in their room, especially not me with Dean, who wasn’t even really my friend.

We sat on my floor for what seemed like ages before I accidentally stared at him a split second too long and he caught me.

“What?” He said.

I tried to hide the fact that the question startled me by looking at my carpet that desperately needed vacuuming. I didn’t want to look up and answer mainly because I didn’t have one. I wasn’t about to go on about my fascination with who he was or what his background story was. And I definitely wasn’t about to be a girl and ask about music tastes, or the car he drove or what his eye color was.

“Are you going to do or say anything?” He spouted at me.

I thought long and hard about how to answer which I guess made him even angrier because he continued with,

“God you’re worse than my brother. When my dad said ‘good influence’ I was expecting some nerdy kid shoving science facts down my throat as opposed to mime of the year.”

“You have a brother?” Was my response. I was trying to keep the conversation going without it being at my expense, but I guessed that wasn’t what he wanted to hear because his response was,

“That’s what you got out of that? That I have a brother, not that you’re the least interesting person on the planet.”

I must have been doing really badly in the conversation because I found myself unable to answer again. Then again I guessed that only proved his point further.

“I’m sorry, clearly neither one of us wants to be here, you least of all. What do you want from me? A rundown of the periodic table and a lesson in the use of punctuation?”

“Well no. But I was hoping for something other than a staring contest where the carpet is included.”

My dad knocked on the door after that comment.

“Thank God.” I had said under my breath and Dean proceeded to give me a look that was more sarcastic than I was. We stood up and Dean left my room with a half-smile thrown in my direction. All I could think, was at the very least he didn’t leave my house half as pissed off as he entered it. I was afraid I was starting to understand why my dad volunteered me.

Two weeks. I had two weeks to obtain a goal unknown to me that was much like training a dog to sit, heel and rollover. Only his name wasn’t Fido, it was Dean. By the time it was Wednesday we both realized there wasn’t anything we could do about our grave misfortune. Dean’s dad took away his car as reassurance he wasn’t going anywhere other than my house and we lived to far to walk to town so we were stuck watching bad action movies and even worse TV. I liked to think back then that I was living vicariously through all those cop shows. I was a nerdy kid who was never going to end up like the main characters and at the very least Dean never had the chance to catch onto my guilty pleasure of watching Cheers.

I still didn’t get where this whole influence thing was going and my dad hadn’t exactly left me with an instructions manual. I assumed I was more of a distraction than anything else. My first thought was that our dads hoped that by the time our two weeks were up, we’d have a strong enough friendship that we’d just keep hanging out. That way Dean wouldn’t be off getting in trouble and I wouldn’t be seen as such a loser. The first week was over before I even realized it began and I still didn’t know anything about Dean and Dean didn’t know anything about me other than the fact that I knew the periodic table and how to use a semi-colon. So that Monday I decided to ask.

“Are we ever going to actually talk?”

“About what?” Was his answer.

“I don’t know, anything I suppose. Like do you actually enjoy the TV shows we’ve been watching for a week or are you just being polite? What music do you play in your car, hell what kind of car is it? Ya know, that kind of stuff.”

“Oh.” Was the only thing that came out of him so I handed him the soda he drank every day and continued to the couch in front of the TV.

It wasn’t until I sat down that I realized he hadn’t been following me. He came around the wall separating the kitchen and family room staring at the soda in his hand still unopened and without looking at me he said very robotically,

“Sort of, not really. Pink Floyd or The Grateful Dead and it’s a Chevy 1967 Impala.”

I answered with, “Good neither do I, cool I can dig the 60s and nice car.”

After replying with a simple ‘cool’ he finally sat down and turned on the TV. It took me a whole ten minutes to realize we were watching Cheers.

I was still curious about his family and I couldn’t really count his answer as an invitation to continue talking so I left the subject alone. I wasn’t the type of person to pry into someone’s life, but I wanted to know more. Like why he always looked tired and why he did the things he did to make him the bad guy. I even started to question if he really was so bad. At the end of that day, he actually looked at me and smiled and before he left he turned and said,

“Tomorrow ask me about, I don’t know, my favorite movie. And in case you were wondering his name is Sam. My little brother’s name is Sam.”

I smiled back and asked if it’d be cool if we continued watching Cheers instead. When he agreed I think I had that same dumb 14 year old girl look plastered on my face from the first time he looked at me. Gabriel didn’t let me forget the entire night, following me around asking how my boyfriend was doing that day. I wasn’t even embarrassed at that point, just seriously pissed off because I couldn’t understand why my brother had to make such a huge fuss over something that I didn’t intend on happening and had no control over. Anna had slowly become jealous because by that point she didn’t care which Winchester she dated, she just wanted a chance with one of them. I think my advice was ‘Good luck.’

I couldn’t help but be excited for the morning to come that Tuesday. I had a list of movies I couldn’t wait to ask Dean about. I was sure not to go skipping down the stairs, not because of my brothers’ reactions but because of my own. I realized that maybe I did need to tone it down a bit. Which happened quickly enough when I entered the kitchen and Gabriel told me not to get too excited because Dean wasn’t coming that day. I gave him a look that said I didn’t believe him, but I had no choice when I read the note our dad left on the fridge saying Dean’s dad had called saying he wouldn’t be coming over. For the rest of the day I had to go around acting like I didn’t care so I ate breakfast as usual and went for a bike ride into town. When I got back Gabriel had gone out with his girlfriend, Raphael was reading a textbook and Anna was talking loudly on the phone about what I assumed was the Winchesters, as usual. Once 6:30 rolled around the phone rang. I answered. He said his name was Bobby and an uncle of Dean and Sam and asked if he had called the right number for a Castiel. I told him that it was me speaking and he said he would be dropping Dean off at 9am the next day and apologized for the short notice about Dean’s day off. I quickly said thank you and hung up. I could’ve sworn the night dragged on after that, not wanting me to get to see Dean ever again.

Exactly at 9am the next day there was a knock on the door and Gabriel yelled up the stairs at me that my boyfriend had arrived. I yelled at him to shut up and answered the door. Dean looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks and didn’t smile like I hoped he would. So much for wishful thinking.

Dean was quite as we went through our daily routine of channel flipping and staring contests. I opened my mouth once or twice in an attempt to break the silence but decided against it. To my surprise he was the one to open up first.

“Can we go outside or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Wanna go out front?”

He didn’t answer, just got up and walked to the front door. I turned off the TV and followed him out. He stood at the top of the steps then sat down on the top stair and watched the cars passing by. I sat down next to him and didn’t say anything. It reminded me of the first day we were required to spend time together. Which then proceeded to remind me that whatever this was, it was a requirement. Dean wasn’t sitting on my front steps at 10 o’clock in the morning of his own accord, but because his father was making him.

I was shocked when Dean started to talk,

“Look, I uh… the reason I wasn’t here yesterday was because…”

I interrupted him with, “What’s your favorite movie?”

He had to pause for a second before saying, “What?”

“You told me to ask you what your favorite movie was.”

“But I’m not talking about…”

“And clearly you aren’t ready to talk about it. If I’ve learned anything about you Dean Winchester in this past week and half it’s that you’ll open up when you want to. Now what’s your favorite movie? Mine is Harold and Maude.”

He went quiet after that which annoyed me. But he seemed sincere in his lack of words.

“True Grit. My favorite movie is True Grit.”

He paused for what seemed like forever, but in reality was probably ten seconds.

“Hey Cas… Thanks.”

He attempted a weak smile but that wasn’t what I noticed. It was Cas… he called me Cas.


	3. Oh.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something wrong with this picture..

I’m not going to lie, I felt warm and fuzzy inside. But I didn’t really know how to put it back then. I wasn’t smiling like an idiot either. I just felt like I was making progress. Heck I thought we were actually becoming friends. Maybe that was what Dean’s dad hoped would happen. If I had known then the things I was going to find out about myself in the following summer months, things probably wouldn’t have been as awkward as they were. And I probably could’ve saved Dean and I from a lot of confusion, ‘I don’t knows’, and heartache.

I guess now is as good a time as any to explain what I mean by heartache. As I’m sure you can tell from my previous experiences with girls, I couldn’t tell you the difference between love, infatuation and the feeling you get when your high school crush looks at you, even if I tried. As far as I could tell that which happened in the movies happened in real life and Romeo and Juliet was a cute love story, not a tragedy that took place over a total of three days between a 13 and 17 year old. I didn’t have friends that I could say I ‘loved’ hanging out with and I wasn’t mature enough to say I loved my family in the slightest. Back then the words ‘I love you’ had much more attached to them than they seem to nowadays and our vocab allowed for greater use of different adjectives in place of the word love. Things were different in 1984, I’ve been saying that all along, but how does it play into my history with Dean?

Well as those two weeks came to a close I began to wonder if we were going to talk to each other or hang out or even look at each other once we were no longer required to. I liked to think the answer was yes but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Which was a good thing too. I didn’t see Dean after those two weeks for what seemed like forever. I heard of him though. Anna wouldn’t shut up about him and his fancy car and his perfect sage green eyes. I kind of wondered how she got to know the color of his irises when even I didn’t know. I mean she had all the reason in the world to stare at him, but I spent two weeks sitting right next to the guy and shot glances in his direction whenever I thought I wouldn’t get caught. As far as I knew she never even got close enough proximity to the guy to find out. This I knew was true because believe me when I say there wouldn’t be a single person in the Novack household who didn’t hear of it. I was ashamed on the inside because I began to feel jealous. Days went by where I was constantly answering the phone hoping on a whim that Dean was calling for me, but it was the girl Heather down the street or Shirley from over on Maple Avenue or Kate who lived next door all asking for Anna. She had never been that popular in the 14 years that she was alive, and she was never that popular ever again.

I tried asking what her deal was and why she all of a sudden had more followers than Jesus, but each time she just made a motion like she was ‘zipping’ her mouth shut and walked away. I was beginning to get that feeling all over again that I was just a loser with no friends and that was all I was ever going to be. It almost made me nervous. I felt like it was all going to come back and bite me in the ass. It wasn’t until August that I was able to shake that feeling away. Because that was when I saw him.

I hadn’t seen Dean since June and I hadn’t heard his name since sometime in July. I could’ve sworn I almost forgot he existed. August 5th, 1984 was the day Dean looked at me, smiled and made me question the rest of my life without lifting a finger. I say that because after he smiled, I had that 14 year old girl look, strewn across my face, and I knew in an instant I didn’t want him to leave. I secretly liked the idea of having Dean there, just smiling. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to smile like he smiled at me so I felt special. I questioned myself countless times if it was because of me or because he had just gotten a cute girl’s number or even better, laid.

There was something inside me that made me believe he was smiling because I did something to make him that happy. What people need to realize is, being gay or queer in the 80s was a tad bit different than it is now. Nowadays people are more civil thanks to movements in the 90s and the ever growing ‘out of the closet’ population. It almost makes it seem like you really don’t have a choice but to deal with it, that is if you don’t agree with homosexuality. But in the 80s, unless your crowd of friends belonged at Woodstock, people didn’t think highly of it thanks to AIDS and religious groups. I didn’t think I was gay and I didn’t know what queer meant, so I spent two days contemplating what to do about the feelings my body refused to let me forget.

I spent two days because that was when he knocked on my door. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I was in my room doing who knows what, when a knock on the front door made me jump. For some reason I was the only one home so naturally I was freaking out about answering the door. Every ounce of nerves left when I opened the door to find perfectly tired, sage green eyes staring at me.

“Hi.” He said to me in his usual casual tone.

By now you can figure out that I had no clue what to say. He had this ability to render me speechless when I had a million things to say. I realized how stupid I must have looked with my mouth hanging open and my eyes wide with amazement.

“Yeah, hi.” I think was my dumb response.

He asked if he could come in and without a thought in my mind I moved out of the way and looked at the floor as he passed the threshold. I immediately forgot any questions I may or may not have had when he stopped me from saying anything.

“Sorry” he said.

“About what?” 

“Not being around. I think we were both wondering if I was to ever be seen around here again after those two weeks.”

“I see you’ve come to a conclusion.”

“Yeah, I have. I like being here.”

“Cool, I like it when you’re here, too.”

I quickly looked away after saying that and we stood in silence until we heard a car pull into the driveway. Gabriel and Anna came bursting through the door a minute later. Dean became tense and drew a tight smile before he looked at me and said,

“Cool, so I’ll stop by tomorrow and we can hang out. I gotta go pick up Sammy from the library.”

“O..Okay.” I said and closed the door behind him.

The next morning I woke up with little reservation. I got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed in the coolest clothes I could find in my closet and ate breakfast before it was even 9 o’clock in the morning. Dean had never specified a time and I wanted to make sure I was ready, but even I knew he probably hadn’t even gotten out of bed at that point. I turned on the TV and before long I was watching Cheers and there was a knock at the door. This time around I knew it was Dean so I went to open the door maybe a bit too fast for a guy opening the door for his other male friend. 

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

I paused after that, standing in the doorway for an awkward amount of time before I realized I was being rude and asked if he wanted to come in.

“Um.. I was actually wondering if you wanted to go for a ride.”

I can remember feeling like I was on top of the world. Dean Winchester offered to be seen in public with me, dorky, nerdy, and poorly dressed, me.

“Yeah, sure. Where did you wanna go?”

“I don’t know yet. You’ve been living here longer than I have, soooo why don’t you tell me?”

“I can think of a few places worthwhile I guess.”

“Cool. Your dad won’t mind will he? I don’t want him showing up with you gone and to come back and realize you’re with me, and then he’ll jump to conclusions, and I don’t want him to think I made you break the law or anything…”

“It’ll be fine.. Your dad hired me to be a good influence, remember? I’d like to think I can continue down that route.”

I interfered with his rant because I could tell it wasn’t going anywhere that was going to get me a shotgun ride in his beloved Impala. And man did I want that privilege.

I lied about having any clue on where to go. I thought about showing him around the bordering towns, but I wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave the comfort of being surrounded by people we know. One town over there was an old barn used as a slaughterhouse in the fifties that was supposed to be haunted. That would’ve been really cool to explore, but knowing me I would’ve gotten scared and clung to Dean like a 12 year old girl. Everyone’s favorite place to go wasn’t actually in our town but in the town north of ours. It was a classic diner that served anything and everything fried and made a mean strawberry milkshake. The waitresses had attitudes that could keep up with even the snarkiest of senior year popularity top contenders and they somehow remembered your name even if you’d only been there once. Only that sounded like a date, not “lets hang out”. It was the middle of July so we could’ve hung out at the lake on the south border of the town, but everyone would be there and I wasn’t quite sure I wanted everyone to be there, with me and Dean.

I settled on the haunted barn. Ghosts and things that go bump in the night seemed to be like Dean’s kind of thing so it wasn’t hard to get him to comply.

“There’s a barn over in the next town. It’s supposed to be haunted. Want to go scope it out?”

“Sounds awesome.”

Awesome. That was a good start in my book.

The drive took all of twenty minutes, the first ten were spent getting out of town, which was filled with stares from people on the sidewalks, as I tried not to look so damn pleased with sitting on the right hand side of Dean on what was the most comfortable leather seat I’d ever sat on. The last ten minutes were worse because it was all back roads so we were pretty much alone and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say something. Instead I spent them trying to convince myself that I liked the idea of Dean more than Dean himself. He looked rugged. He still looked like he never got an ounce of sleep and he was wearing a plaid shirt that looked awfully big on him. 

Once we arrived at the barn it looked exactly like I imagined it would. It was in the middle of a clearing in a half wheat field, half forest patch of land. You know, the kind of place where every surrounding road is labeled “scenic route”. The paint was basically gone, but you could tell that it had once been painted that cliqued barn red with white trim and every type of foliage was over grown and taking over the pathetic looking building as one of its own. We were clearly not the only ones interested in testing out the haunted theory. Local teens trying to scare anyone and everyone had painted on the doors slogans saying “Keep Out” and “Prepare to Die”. They also made a poor attempt at an inverted pentacle and what looked like Egyptian runes. Somewhere inside of me I was both scared and felt like it was the stupidest thing to ever exist.  
Dean looked interested. He walked up to the door that read “Keep Out”, smirked and opened it. I don’t know if I was expecting some wind chill to come pouring out or to hear faint screams in the creak of the door, but nothing happened. Dean walked in, turned around, asked if I was coming and continued onward. I gulped down my sad excuse of fear, stuffed my hands in my front pockets and followed. The inside was just as creepy, but for different reasons. There was nothing there except for a concrete floor with cracks that weeds grew out of. You could see where posts had been set into the concrete to use as barriers and there were old marks on the floor where heavy machinery once was. It think the “haunted” part was merely the feeling you got when you realized how many animals died in there.

I wasn’t scared and Dean wasn’t impressed. His curiosity continued when he found a ladder built into the wall to get to a second floor. I didn’t want to trust the old rotten wood to hold us up so I was skeptical at best, but Dean didn’t care. Before I could protest he was at the top of the ladder peaking his head through the hole in the ceiling. 

“It should be able to hold the both of us if you wanna climb up here.” He yelled down to me as he pulled himself up.

I could hear his footsteps overhead, which honestly creeped me out more than the building itself so I climbed up the ladder and pulled myself up to inspect what was there. I could only imagine what teens used the second floor for. Someone actually took the time to haul hay bales up and the wood gave off a stench that I could only assume was marijuana. More runes were painted on the walls in red paint and this time the pentacle was on the floor. Dean picked up what I though was a rat tail and threw it at me and I almost fell down the hole that lead to the ladder.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Throw weird shit at me.”

“Is somebody scared?”

“No. This place hasn’t even begun to scare me.”

“Good. It shouldn’t, there’s nothing here besides the reminiscence of outcast teens and I can tell you right now, more than one girl has ‘sacrificed’ her virginity up here.”

“Is that why what’s-her-face tried to convince me that hay is comfortable to sit on and that’s why old beds used to be stuffed with it in history class?”

We said ‘probably’ at the same time and broke out laughing. I realized I was scared the whole time because I didn’t know what was going to happen next with Dean. We were in an abandoned barn, no roads were visible from any part of the property and if you screamed, you were probably the only person to hear it. I began to see what I had set myself up for and I didn’t know what to make of it. It was really hot on the second floor which didn’t help ease my awkwardness when I saw that Dean’s forehead was beginning to sweat and he looked more like a man than any other kid his age. 

He began inspecting the paintings on the walls with his back facing me. I walked up next to him and asked if he had any idea why the specific runes were chosen. I didn’t think he’d actually have an answer and I thought that my sarcastic tone would let him know I wasn’t expecting a serious one, but he said that they originated during the time of Stonehenge and were basic runes used for connecting oneself to something or someone. 

“It’s basically you’re average rune used to allow yourself to connect and become one with the elements. It’s used in a beginner’s ritual when starting out as a follower of which ever religion that uses this particular one. But I get the idea that’s not what they wanted to become ‘connected’ with.”

“How..??”

“I was homeschooled until now, my dad’s not the most normal guy and my brother likes to read. What can I say? I’ve learned some pretty weird stuff over time.”

“Oh.. um.. okay.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not something I generally bring up in conversation because, let’s face it, how often to poorly drawn runes come up in civilized conversations in the cafeteria?”

“I guess they don’t.”

“Exactly.”

“So you and Sam.. you’re close with your brother?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“It’s just that I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t get along with mine. Nor do a lot of people at this age.”

“We lost our mom at a young age. Sam was a couple months old and I was three. My dad works about as much as yours in twice as many locations. So yeah.. we grew up close.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know.”

I went silent after that because I didn’t know what to say. I could’ve tried consoling him with the fact that I never knew my mother, but it didn’t seem like the right place. My story seemed to have been a lot less melodramatic than his.

I turned around and leaned against the wall with my arms folded across my chest. Dean looked at me and I could have sworn I saw some kind of gleam in his eyes. I stood up straight and positioned myself between him and the wall behind me. We both had confused looks on our faces while we tried to decide if we were thinking the same thing. I gave up on the guessing game and slid my feet forward to see if he would protest to my attempt at closing the gap between us. When he didn’t do anything, I continued further until less than an inch was separating the steady rise and fall of our chests’ heavy breathing. By that point I figured there was no turning back so I leaned in, and Dean leaned back.

“Cas..”

I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life and I can tell you now at the age of 42 I am still yet to feel that amount of embarrassment again.

“Cas.. look, it’s not that I don’t want to or I don’t want people to later find out about whatever this is, but I did something.. something that you’re not going to like.”

I could feel the heartbreak coming.

“I slept with Anna.”


	4. Back to Square One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again..

“You.. you did what?”

“I slept..”

“I heard you. You.. you slept with my baby sister.”

I felt cheated more than anything, not because I cared about the wellbeing of my little sister, but because I half hoped he had liked me all along. Which I guess makes me sound pretty selfish but when you’re fifteen and falling in love for the first time to find out that person slept with your relative, you get slightly angry and a lot wishy-washy. I didn’t want him to know that that was why I was upset though. So I decided to try the whole caring about my younger sister thing.

“She’s fourteen!”

“I know.. I know.. Look Cas. I didn’t know what was happening. You know, between you and me. You think I’ve done this before? You think I know what it’s like to fall for the loser guy?”

“So now I’m a loser too, great.”

“Cas, you know what I mean. I’m sorry okay. I wanted to figure out what I was feeling and well, I have a habit of doing things that aren’t good for me.”

“You can say that again.”

I decided it was time to leave and headed for the ladder.

“Cas.. wait.” Was all Dean said as he pulled on my arm and tried to drag me back into him.

“Dean, let go of me.”

“You know what? Fine, we’ll go.”

We both climbed back to the first floor and left the pathetic excuse of a barn that I forgot was supposed to be haunted. I couldn’t believe that I was going to have to sit in that car that he may or may not have slept with my sister in for ten minutes while he brought me back to my house.

When we arrived at my house I got out and slammed the door as hard as I could after letting him know not to call me. I think he attempted to say something, but my mind was too clouded to hear. I ran into the house and into my room. I started to cry into my pillow before I started to feel pathetic. I was crying over a guy that I tried to kiss not 20 minutes prior, to find out he had slept with my sister, I guess you really can’t do anything to tame the bad boy, even if you try. My anger was coming back and before I knew what I was doing, or what I was going to say I barged into Anna’s room, breathing heavily, wanting to unleash every ounce of rage on her, but not knowing how. 

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I know what you did.”

“Remind me again what exactly it was that I did?”

“You slept with him. And don’t lie, he already confessed.”

“Confessed? What the bad boy decided to start going to church? Come on the guy can do what he wants and I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“He’s supposed..”

I stopped myself before I said anything I would regret.

“Supposed to what? Supposed to be with you? Are you the only person around here allowed to hang out with him? Allowed to like him? Jeez Cas.. Wait a second.. OH MY GOD you like him.”

“No, Anna. You’re missing my point. He’s 16, almost 17, and your 14. Isn’t that like illegal somewhere in this country?”

“Holy shit, everything makes sense now.”

“How does any of this make sense now?”

“When was the last time you actually combed your hair? Huh? Or what about the new shoes? You’ve been saving your money for a year and now you’re going to spend it on shoes. Really Cas?”

“Fuck you.”

“Dean already did that. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

I didn’t know what to say to that, honestly. She had a way of turning every insult back on whoever said it.

“Tell, no one.”

She flashed me a smile as I walked out and reentered my room. Who would’ve thought someone so innocent looking could make everything so much worse. Gabriel didn’t even have the power to make my life such a living Hell. Although he was perfectly capable of adding in his own two cents. He knocked on my door.

“Go away.” I said into my pillow.

“I heard you yelling. What’d she do this time? Steal your money? Put dirt in your food? Splash water on the front of your pants while walking the halls at school? C’mon, what’d she do?”

“That’s none of your business. Now go away.”

“I’m not dumb, Cas.”

“Yeah, well, I am.”

“You’ll get over it.”

“Sure about that?”

“Not really. Just trying to be positive.”

I mumbled into my pillow and Gabriel left.

“Hang on. Gabriel.”

“Yeah?”

“How much do you know?”

“The same amount that you do. Anna slept with Dean and you’re in love with him.”

“I’m not…”

He raised his eyebrows at me in question and I had no choice but to shut my mouth and go back to suffocating myself in my pillow.

“These things work out trust me.”

“What Anna slept with your dream girl?”

“Well no. Raphael did.”

“Raphael slept with Samantha?”

He nodded.

“God what is wrong with this family.”

“A lot. That’s why we’re your family.”

He was right about that. There was a lot wrong with our family. But it didn’t mean that I was going to let go of the fact that Dean slept with my sister. It just wasn’t going to happen. I hoped that the fact that I wanted to get over it the second I heard it meant that I would at some point. If that makes any sense. 

Junior year was about to start. It was a week prior to the first day of school and two weeks since I had last seen Dean. I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen when I saw him again, but I knew I was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. I wasn’t over it either. I was a conflicted mess of teenager emotions and the worst part was there was no one to turn to. I didn’t have any friends who had ever been in my situation, not that I would ever consider letting them in on it in the first place. No adult would ever in a million years know what to tell me, especially my father who would probably find me a disgrace before realizing it made sense, considering the amount of times he came home to me cooking dinner and baking cookies while wearing our mother’s old apron, disgraced about me being in love with a man, that is.  
Anna had tried numerous times to get me to talk to Dean. Apparently they had kept in touch and Dean had asked about me. I didn’t know which was worse. The fact that they kept in touch or the fact that Dean resorted to asking Anna about me when he knew she was the reason we were in this mess. It took 10 days for me to come around and start talking to Anna, whether it was civil or not will be left unsaid, but at least I was back to acknowledging her existence. But it only took her a day to start talking to me about Dean.

“He’s been asking about you.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Dean.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, about a week ago he dropped by. You weren’t here, but I was so we sat down and had a little chat.”

“Congratulations.”

“Cas I’m being serious. He’s worried you’re never going to talk to him again.”

“Well he should’ve thought about that before he decided to.. well.. you know.”

“Look, Cas, he didn’t know what he was feeling and he didn’t want to be wrong about you either.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? The guy who may or may not be the guy of my dreams slept with my little sister to find out if he was actually gay?”

“Actually.. yeah.”

“Did you know that that was his plan when you agreed to..”

“Yeah.”

“You agreed to have sex with Dean Winchester so that he could figure out if he was gay or not. Well that’s just peachy.”

“Hey, it’s sex with Dean Winchester. Feelings or not I have bragging rights for the rest of my high school career.”

“Fan-freaking-tastic.”

I was annoyed, not necessarily angry at that point. But it didn’t mean that I wanted to, or was even ready to talk to Dean.

When the first day of school came I asked to be driven to school with the idea in my head that it would throw Dean off guard that I wasn’t on the bus and he would be waiting by the drop off spot in front of the school and I’d never show up. Too bad Dean drives to school and Gabriel thought it was a brilliant idea to pull up next to his car.

“You’re going to have to talk to him.”

“Says you.”

“Says everyone.”

I hated it when Gabriel made sense because that meant you really weren’t being logical. I looked over and there he was, leaning against the driver’s side door. Raphael, Anna and I piled out of the car and within seconds they were all gone. It was just us standing there. It annoyed me how comfortable he looked.

“I’m not going to pick a fight with you in the parking lot so just hear me out. I’m sorry, we know this. We know that it’s probably going to take you a whole lot longer to get used to just the idea of forgetting what happened. Now I’m not asking to go back to where we were before I told you. All I ask is that you allow me to have one chance. One chance to try and make it up to you.”

“One chance.”

“One chance. That’s it. I talked to Gabriel earlier and he’s expecting me to bring you home today. After I get my one chance.”

The bell for first block rang.

“One chance.” Was all I said before walking to class.

That day dragged on for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted so desperately for everything to go back to the way it was and what was worse was I hoped it would. Most forgiving wasn’t exactly what I would be named in any yearbook that’s for sure. But I wanted to believe that Dean’s one chance would give me enough reason to see past what had happened. He was right though, it was going to take a long time for me to even consider the idea of forgetting.

The final bell rang and I spent more time just standing at my locker pretending to have forgotten my combination, expecting to make Dean think I was going to stand him up, that I almost did forget. By the time I was done, the halls were empty and it was nice because that meant no one would see the distress in my face. I walked out of the front of the building and there he was. He was sitting on the front steps of the school, he looked at his watch twice by the time I forced myself forward. I stopped on the stair he was sitting on and didn’t move. He spoke first, as usual.

“Thank you for finally gracing me with your presence.”

“You’re welcome.”

I paused and neither of us moved.

“So.. is this that one chance you were hoping for? Or are we going somewhere else?”

“Cas.. think you could sit for a moment. You’re making me nervous.”

I sat down without saying anything and with enough room in between us to make him realize that I still had a problem with the whole situation. I didn’t want there to be any confusion about what my feelings were. We didn’t look at each other and we didn’t say anything, until I got annoyed that is.

“This is your idea of making up for everything?”

“I was hoping the tension would’ve diffused.”

“Well, it didn’t. And now I’m annoyed.”

“Cas. There’s nothing that I could say that would help make any of this better. I know that, you know that, but I was hoping that through.. this.. us sitting here I mean, we could start to remember what it was like to be in each other’s presence. Like we went back to square one, that first day when my dad dragged me through your door and I hated you and you hated me. Only…”

.

..

…

“Only what.”

“I don’t hate you. I.. I think I love you.”


	5. Getting Over It

I definitely didn’t have an answer to that. It felt like my heart was in my throat and my stomach was in knots the size of my fist. I’d never been in love and I’d never been loved, other than due to family requirement. If I had known love was so painful I might not have been so caught up in trying to find it. I wanted to cry and for a moment I almost did.

“Dean.”

“Cas.”

I broke the tension when I looked at him in the eyes for the first time in almost a month. The sage green had been magnified by the glass coating of tears in his eyes. He was sincerely sorry. I just hoped that what I was going to do next wasn’t going to be regretted later in life.

“I’m only going to say this once. It really does suck that this is what had to happen for you to figure out you liked me, or whatever. I realize that it sucks. I realize that we both want me to move past it, and I am trying, it’s just that it’s going to take time. And I don’t want you to think that I’m not.. you know, trying. I want to get back to where we were in the barn, up until you said… Dean I..”

“Cas..”

“I’m not finished.”

“Okay. Continue.”

“Dean, I.. I think I love you, too. But for right now, I just can’t.”

“Cas. Um. Thanks. Just one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Did my one chance work?”

“Yeah, it worked.”

After that he drove me home in silence and I told him that I’d let him know when I would be okay with starting over. I desperately wanted to be able to convince myself that he only did it because he wanted to make sure he really liked me so that he wouldn’t hurt me in the long run. But in the end he still did. It was going to be a long year and the worst part was Dean was a senior. By the end of the year he’d be moving on to who knows what. Not that Dean seemed like a college type of guy, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I ran out of time. If I didn’t make up my mind to find out he would be leaving forever.  
Two weeks into school and I was more submerged in my work than any other year to date. I joined the debate team, social justice league, science club, math club, took extra poetry classes after school and my dad finally started teaching me how to drive. It was hectic and I saw very little of my family that year. That year also change my life entirely.

A month after school started something bad happened. The worst of the worst. There was a car accident. Some college kids were coming home for the weekend and they took it as a chance to have a crazy party. I think everyone went. Well everyone but me, as I’m sure you can all assume. Gabriel went, Raphael went, Anna went, Dean probably went, like I said, everyone. Only not everyone got home that night. That night changed everything. I really can’t say it enough.

I think I was finishing writing my position for the debate team. We had a competition coming up with some of the local high schools. It was 1 o’clock in the morning when the phone rang and my dad haphazardly got out of bed cursing at the gods for making him wake up. I heard the phone hit the floor, my dad run out of the house and the car leave the driveway in less than a minute flat. I slid out of bed, went to the kitchen and picked up the receiver. I spoke into the phone with reservation. 

“Hello?”

When I heard the news the phone found its way back to the floor. I cried a lot that night. I couldn’t go back to sleep, not after what I had heard so I spent an hour pacing, eventually leaving a clear path in the carpeting. I took turns crying on the kitchen floor, the couch, the front porch where I screamed. I didn’t want the news to sink in and I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that at some point it was going to.  
Finally at 5 o’clock in the morning I woke up on the kitchen floor, exhausted with blood shot eyes from all the crying to hear the door open. My dad, Anna, and Raphael came through the entryway to find my pathetic state on the hard linoleum tiles. That was when it hit me and I started crying again. Everyone crowded around me and we sat there as a family on the kitchen floor staring into the mistake in the tile pattern that we all hated, but never did anything about.

Gabriel was gone.

The next few weeks were rough. Anna, Raphael, and I took the following week off from school, while our dad planned the funeral. The sympathy letters got really old really fast. It was like a constant reminder of what had happened. After two weeks had gone by and all the services were over we decided to try going back to school. I had to drop out of most the clubs I had joined because I had missed too many meetings so I wasn’t a part of the debate team, social justice league and math club. I still took the poetry classes because I thought that writing would be a good way of releasing my feelings without becoming angry or violent.

The second quarter was coming to a close which meant it was going to be Christmas soon. My dad decided not to do our usual get together with our relatives because he, simply, still wasn’t ready for it and in all honesty I don’t think any of us kids were either. No one wanted to spend Christmas crying or talking about memories that were supposed to make us feel better. A week later you could find the four of us sitting in front of the fireplace, eating Chinese food, and purposefully choosing not to talk to each other.

There really isn’t anything else to say about that year. Eventually the “I’m sorry’s” and the “It’ll get better’s” died out which was kind of nice. But it still took a while for our friends to talk to us normally, especially since most of Raphael and Anna’s friends started out as Gabriel’s. Raphael managed to keep his title of valedictorian that year, probably because studying kept his mind off of everything else, and graduation was coming up. The family wasn’t going to be kept at bay much longer, knowing that they would be expecting a huge graduation party, something, anything that would be slightly happier than what we had been living with day in and day out.

This story isn’t about what happened in high school in general. This story is about Dean and what he did to change my life, whether or not it was for better or for worse is still up for debate. And this is where he comes back into the picture.

Like I stated previously, Dean was also a senior in high school. I hadn’t spoken to him in months. I’d seen him in the halls and I heard his name mentioned a few times, but I didn’t know what was to become of him in the fall. I didn’t know if he was leaving, or staying, or if he even remembered where we had left off and what we were aiming for. Even I was starting to forget. People have a funny way of coming back to you in the end.

It was the first Saturday of June, about two weeks before graduation the phone rang. I was the only one home so I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Cas.. It’s me. Dean.”

“Um.. Yeah, hi.”

“Can we meet up later?”

“Yeah, sure. Where?”

“Meet me at the diner around 6?”

“I can do that.”

I left the house at 5:45, five minutes more than I needed to get there. Half way to the diner I started remembering what it was I was feeling for Dean all those months ago and I began to worry about what was going to happen next. I didn’t know if I was mentally stable for a relationship, let alone one with Dean who was probably even less stable than I was, and that was without a recent death in the family. 

I got there and I guess Dean had the same idea as me, showing up early, he was parked on the side of the diner. I parked next to his car and got out. He was leaning against the door looking at me so I did the same. He spoke first after he noticed I was hesitant.

“Long time no see.”

“Yeah. Um, how’ve you been?”

“I’m alright.”

“How have you been holding up?”

“I’m better.”

“Good. So hey, Cas, listen. I realize we haven’t spoken in a long time and that obviously things have changed since the last time we spoke so I just wanted to see where we, or you, were at.”

“I figured that’s why you called me here. But yes. I have to admit I didn’t really remember most of what happened or what I had been feeling until I started driving over here.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Both? I guess?”

“So what’s the good news?”

“None of it matters anymore. I’ve completely moved on from it and I’m sorry, for the both of us really, that it took a death in my family for me to realize it, but I did. No one lives forever, but even if they did, I’m not sure I’d want to spend forever crying over having been 15.”

“And the bad news?”

“I’m not sure if I can pick up the pieces of where we left off. Last summer, in the barn, right before you told me. I’m not going to go back to that point. I’m going back further than that. I’m talking about completely starting over. Like none of the things that happened between you and me happened.”

“Fair enough. So let’s start over.”

“Sounds good.”

“So, how do you feel about starting over now?”

“Right now?”

“We are at a diner, aren’t we?”

“Well played, Dean Winchester. Well played.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He said as he stood up and walked toward the door. He opened it, said ‘Ladies first’, and smirked at me while I gave him a smug look as I wasn’t entirely amused. Clearly he had still remembered where we had been in our relationship all those months ago and I had a feeling that he had felt like he had ‘won’. 

Our dinner date consisted of a greasy cheeseburger with bacon and French fries for Dean and pancakes with fruit for me. We finished with a milkshake for me and pie for Dean, and catching up on the lesser important topics.

“So you’re graduating. What does the future hold for Dean Winchester?”

“I got a local job.”

“Oh really? No big adventures? Don’t take offense, but I never saw you as a college guy.”

“Got that right. And no big adventures. I promised to help in any way I can to help Sam when he goes off to college, so I’m working to help pay for those upcoming four years of his life.”

“How nice. So where are you working?”

“I got a job at as a mechanic. Working on restoration of old cars, new cars, cars in general.”

“It suits you.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Hmp, yeah, Raphael got into the medical program at Yale. He’s pretty excited.”

“Good for him.”

“So what does Sam want to do?”

“He wants to attend Stanford School of Law.”

“Oh, wow. Um, tell him I said good luck.”

“Will do.”

We finished our desserts and went back to our cars. Dean stopped and turned around standing in front of me. He looked at me and I couldn’t tell if he had a confused, happy or sarcastic face on. I reminded myself to never play poker against him.

“So is there any chance of this happening again in the near future?”

“There is.”

“Awesome.”

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

Don’t ask me what I was thinking because I wouldn’t know what to tell you. All I knew was my body was telling me that Dean Winchester was the best I was ever going to get and to not let that get away from me, again. I ever so briefly graced my lips with the moon’s highlight on his cheekbone and retracted, making it the quickest, most important moment of my life. He probably wished on a miracle that it was dark enough outside for me to not notice the shade of red that stained the spot on his cheek where I burned my lip print into his nerve endings memory.


	6. "Moose, meet Castiel. Castiel, meet Moose."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Castiel meet.

I was happy for the first time in a long time. There was something constant in my life for a change. It took a while, but I eventually succumbed to the idea of being in a normal relationship. The first few weeks weren’t perfect and I think I made Dean feel like I regretted the kiss on the cheek because I didn’t do it again for a month. He tried too hard half the time because, in a way, he was still making up for what he did. He never said anything about it, but I could tell through the way he bought every type of flower he could find until he found my favorite one, and how he started to read in attempt to have intellectual conversations. Dean never read, or so I thought until I walked in on him asleep, face first and drooling into the last third of The Three Musketeers. I cringed once when he brought me red roses. I felt like I had just kicked a puppy because that’s what his face looked like. It was cute, a nice gesture, and my room smelled nice for a week, but I’m not big on a classic and somewhat corny courtship. Nevertheless I had started going on regular dinner and movie dates with him and I didn’t tell him, but about two weeks later I took a trip to the haunted barn again.

It scared me even less the second time because I understood how fake it was. But I wanted to go back to that day. Almost a year had passed since the last time I had been there with Dean and I just felt like I never got the chance to really let go. The spray paint had faded on the doors and it looked more abandoned than ever. I climbed up the ladder to the second floor and pulled myself up. This time I wasn’t greeted by a tail being thrown at my face. Inside it all looked the same. The hay, poorly drawn runes, everything was the same. It made me realize just how much I had changed. I was the only thing in that room that was different, which led me to remember what I felt that day. Looking back I think I was more disappointed than anything. Neither of us knew what we were doing; let alone what we wanted to have happen down the road. I couldn’t say that I was okay with what happened, but I couldn’t say that I didn’t understand why he did it, either.

I walked over to the far wall where the poorly drawn runes began to peel. I stood staring at the wall that my back ignored a year ago when I tried to kiss Dean for the first time.

I was looking at the wall, but my mind was looking at all the things that had changed. Not just the big things either. Yes, Gabriel was gone, I had bought my own car, Raphael had graduated and was about to move half way across the country. But something about successfully starting to grow hair on my face and forgetting to dot my “i’s” on written assignments were what I was more focused on. I tried to figure out what that meant for the upcoming year. It was my turn to graduate and that meant it was time for me to decide where I was going and what I was doing.

Dad wanted me in business, Raphael wanted me to go to med school and be like him, Anna didn’t have much of an opinion, and Dean was adamant that I did what I wanted. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go far, but I knew I didn’t want to be home. We didn’t live far from Kansas State and it meant I’d still be close to Dean, but that didn’t mean I knew what to study.

My mind reminded itself that I was standing in an abandoned barn and not applying to college. I pulled a strip of peeling paint off the wall and looked at it like I had somehow destroyed its meaning, like I had taken away part of the barn that supposedly made it creepy. And then I remembered I was holding on to nothing other than a wood shaving with red paint on it. My mind was trying to make me realize something. There was nothing significant about the barn. That’s all it was.

A barn.

And I allowed it to consume three fourths of the past year of my life. I had allowed it to become so significant that I felt the need to come back and stand where I once stood yet again. Like the peeled shaving in my hand would have some sort of philosophical answer to why I felt the need to stand on rotting wood. I felt dumb and suddenly empty. I smirked at myself.

“Haunted, my ass.” I said to myself.

I folded the wood shaving, carefully placing it in my pocket so that the paint wouldn’t come off and went back to the ladder. As soon as I finished climbing my way down and turned around to walk out, the ladder gave out and fell to the floor. I didn’t even turn around to glance at the damage before I sprinted outside, closing the heavy doors behind me. I nervously dropped my keys three times before they found their way into the lock on the door and finally into the ignition. 

I could only pretend to be so tough for so long. Plus Dean wasn’t there to make fun of me for falling for all the scary myths. 

Driving away, I realized that unless someone went through the trouble of replacing the ladder, I was probably the last person to go up there. I doubted that anyone would. And I was right, a year later the town paid to have it torn down because whether or not I believed it, it continued to become more and more worn down, causing problems to the surrounding wildlife. For me it was bitter sweet when they tore it down. Regardless of my realization that all it really was, was a barn, I couldn’t help but feel a connection due to all the experiences I had in there. It was where I realized I was in love for the first time. It was where I  
experienced heart break for the first time. And it’s where I realized we’re all only human.

Once I got back to the house that day, Dean was sitting on the porch with his brother. 

“Hey, Cas.”

“Hey”

“Cas, this is my little brother Sam. Sam.. this, this is Cas.”

Sam looked a little uncomfortable. I suspected Dean shared the nature of our relationship with him and Sam wasn’t sure how to take it. I wasn’t sure how to respond either. I never do.

“Hello, Sam.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh. All, or at least mostly, good, I hope.”

“Uh, yeah, definitely good.”

He offered to shake hands but quickly retracted, running his hands nervously through his hair. The three of us stood there awkwardly for a while so I decided to break the silence.

“So what are you guys up to?”

“Not much.” Dean replied. “We’ve been sitting here wondering where you’ve been.”

“Oh, I uh, I haven’t been doing much… Did you guys want to go somewhere? Hang out?”

“Sure. I think Sammy’s got a few questions for ya.”

“Wait, what?” Was Sam’s reply. He appeared to not be paying attention to the conversation, even though he was staring at me.

“Come on Sammy, we’re going to the diner.”

“Uh, um, okay.”

“Who’s car are we taking?” I asked.

Dean decided we should all go in his beloved car. I offered to sit in the back, but Dean insisted I was in the front. Sam looked confused and somewhat insulted. All the way there he sat in the back seat looking betrayed by his brother.

After we arrived and sat down, it was back to the awkward silence. Dean ordered enough food for two people, Sam ordered a salad, and I had a milkshake. As soon as our food came things started to smooth out. 

Dean spoke first with half a burger and fries in his mouth.

“Sammy, he doesn’t bite.”

“I know. It’s just, new.”

Dean looked at me and shrugged as if to say, ‘he has a point’, and continued to eat another fry. I tried to find a conversation.

“So Dean tells me you want to go to law school.” It's the only thing I could really remember Dean mentioning of any substance.

“Uh, yeah, I like law.”

“Good. I think it’s a noble pursuit.”

“Thanks. Do you know what you plan on doing after high school?”

“I have a few ideas; none of them are set in stone though.”

“You never told me that.” Dean said.

“I just started to think about it. Like I said, nothing is set in stone.”

“You’re not going to go overseas, are you?” Dean almost looked worried when he asked.

“No, nothing like that. I found a school here in Kansas. Not too terribly far.”

“Really?”

“Yes Dean. If I do go, I’ll be less than three hours away.”

Dean shrugged again in a haphazard approval. I sighed. Sam looked big and awkward.

“Is this your idea of a rehearsal dinner?”

That wasn’t anyone at the table. And it wasn’t a person of the same gender either. I turned in time to keep Anna from whipping me with a kitchen towel.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be working or something?”

Anna got a job shortly after Gabriel died to keep her mind occupied. Fortunately it worked and helped her move on. Unfortunately her job of choice was at the one place I could afford to eat at.

“Lucky for you it’s my break.” She said as she slid into the booth next to me.

I flung half a sarcastic smile in her direction before I mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ to Dean and Sam.

“So what is this? Meet and greet? Getting to know the family type thing?”

“You could say that.”

Anna looked at Sam who was still a little awkward.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Uh, nothing.” Sam looked at Anna when he replied, but saw me looking at him and returned to studying his fat-free italian dressing drenched salad.

“Ah. Still haven’t had time to digest it, have you?”

“Wha..”

Anna cut him off. “I mean Raphael and I kind of could tell what was happening, but once it was like, official, official, it took some time.”

“How much time?”

“Don’t worry. It took less than a week.” Anna flung her arm around my shoulder. “We came around when we realized our weird brother was growing up. He was finally acting cool.”

“Annaaaaaaa.” I said annoyingly as a buried my face in my hands.

“Castieeeeeeel.” Was her response. “But in all seriousness I get it. It’s not exactly something you hear every day. But you will come to accept it and it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be. Trust me. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And that’s the end of my break guys.”

“Thank god.” I whispered. Apparently not quite enough because Anna turned around and glared at me.

“Whoops.”

We went back to being quite. But Sam appeared to be a little more at ease.

“Hey Cas?” Sam said.

“Yeah?”

“Hurt my brother and I’ll run you down like a moose.”

That scared me. Sam wasn’t huge, but he was tall. And muscular. He probably looked like the perfect football player to most. 

“I’ll… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dean looked at his brother and then at me anxiously. “Sam. Please don’t scare him.” He paused. “So Cas, where were you earlier today?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far this is all I have written. Hopefully will be finishing it soon with only one or two more chapters! Not too sure how it'll end, but I want to move on from this project that's taken me waaaaaaayyyyy to long.


	7. FIN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happily ever after??? Who knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed as I went on the chapters became increasingly dialogue heavy. I accidentally let the scriptwriter in me get the best of my writing and therefore this chapter is probably three fourths talking. I didn't want it to be that way, but couldn't think of any other way to end it. 
> 
> Enjoy, regardless.

“What?”

“I asked you were you were earlier.”

“Oh, I uh… I went to look at that old barn again.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was just curious.”

“About?”

“How it would look. How I would feel while I was there. That kind of stuff.”

Dean looked scared to death and Sam looked confused. Clearly Dean didn’t let him in on that time in our relationship.

“Don’t worry about it. I came to the realization that all it really is, is a barn and that’s all it ever will be and it’s not what it is that is significant, it’s what happened to the people in it.”

“Oh. Uh..”

“I’m over it Dean. You can calm down and go back to eating.”

Sam looked up.

“Do I even…”

Dean and I simultaneously said, ‘no’, and that was the end of that conversation.

We finished eating and left. On our way home Dean took a route I wasn’t familiar with. He pulled into the driveway of what looked like a log cabin working as a car repair shop. Dean spoke to his brother.

“Sam, you can get out.”

“Um.. okay. When do you plan on coming home?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Out.”

“Alright, alright.”

I had to get out first because Dean’s car was one of those sporty two door cars. But after Sam got out and Dean and I made our way back to town. I was curious as usual.

“Was that?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I never even knew what street you live on, now that I think about it.”

“Well as you can see there’s a reason for that.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

I could tell that he didn’t want to finish that conversation. I felt bad because my dad took a lot of pride in our somewhat lavish lifestyle and that’s all Dean really saw. I didn’t care, but I didn’t want to drag on the conversation.

“So where are we going?”

“No clue.”

“Are you… are you mad at me?”

“No.” I realized he hadn’t looked at me the entire time since telling Sam I was looking into after high school options.

“Dean..”

“It’s fine. You could have said something though.”

“If I do choose to go to college it’s because it’s my choice and I want to. What else would I do with my life? Dean, you had to of known I wasn’t going to sit around in Lawrence, Kansas my entire life.”

“No I know that. Where were you thinking of going?”

“There’s a school further west that has an aviation program. I don’t know. I’ve always been fascinated by anything that can fly.”

“You want to fly planes?”

“Something like that.”

“Alrighty then.”

“You can be my stewardess.”

Dean didn’t think that was anywhere near as funny as I did. I sat in the passenger seat of his car laughing about the idea of masculine, dudes dude, Dean Winchester vaguely pointing to random locations in a plane to denote exits. I could see a slight smile breaking through, he probably realized that I was at the very least thinking of the future of our relationship.

I had to ask,

“So are we okay now?”

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Okay.”

We continued driving and after about five minutes I asked if we were going in circles. Neither of us had any clue what to do or what we even wanted to do. But I soon recognized where we were going. I recognized the scenic route sign and wheat field.

“Dean?”

“I have an idea.”

I felt bad and Dean looked hurt. We pulled onto the road that led to the barn. In a way I felt the same exact way I had the very first time we ever went. All of a sudden I felt like I was 15 again and excited to be sitting in the passenger seat of Dean Winchester’s prized car. I smiled to myself. I think Dean saw me because a sigh of relief came over him. He parked in the same spot he had a year and a half ago and looked at the barn the same way he had before but with less reservation.

“I broke the ladder.”

“What?”

“When I was here earlier. I went up to the loft and when I came back down the ladder fell down.”

“Good job.”

“Thanks. I try.”

I walked up to stand next to him, but we didn’t look at each other. Just at the door that no longer hinted to the barn’s original red and white color scheme. I pulled the wood shaving out of my pocket and looked at it. Most of the paint came off in my pocket, which was exactly what I didn’t want to have happen.

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“I took it earlier. It was peeling off the wall. I don’t know why I took it.”

Dean took it from my hand and inspected it.

“Were you wishing you could have the same experience most other teenage girls your age had up there?”

“What? No. Deeeeeeeeaan.” I dragged out his name as I took the shaving back.

“You’re going to apply to that school aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“And I’m going to have to wear a scarf around my neck and pretend I’m pointing to exits and teaching people how to use gas masks aren’t I?”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Awesome.”

We both started laughing. I was glad that he didn’t bring up what happened there before.

“I’m glad we came here.” I said. Although I’m not sure of where else we would have gone. It wasn’t the nicest of days, kind of cloudy and a little cold, not exactly ‘a stroll through the park’, ‘visit the beach’, kind of day.

“I’m glad too. Although it’s starting to look not to great out. Want to head back to your place? We can watch Cheers.”

I chuckled. “Yeah that’d be great.”

I started walking back to the car, but Dean didn’t follow.

“Hey, Cas.”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

Dean took two steps towards me, pulled my tie out of my sweater vest, wrapped it around his hand and pulled me in. In a surrealist film this is where I would have melted to a puddle, in a dream this is where I would have grown wings and started to fly, in life it was when I knew I was totally, utterly and hopelessly in love for the very first time. When he pulled away there was a tingling sensation where his lips briefly collided with mine. I could feel the cold air intensify as my face flushed red with heat and excitement. 

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“My turn.” I pulled him back in. This time I was holding onto the green jacket he religiously wore when it was cold out that oddly matched the color of his eyes. His arms found their way around my waist and when the kiss that could melt a snowstorm ended, we were standing in a puddle provided by the rain I could have sworn was cued by angels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the ending isn't too corny. I may be making this a series so that we can further follow Castiel's life and where Dean and Cas end up in future years. Might venture into mature content. It'd be a nice way to challenge my writing capabilities. Leave comments!


End file.
